Inspiring and challenging every girl to reach her full potential

Victoria College Belfast Girls' Hockey

2015-16 End of Year Awards

A large crowd gathered for the Annual Girls Hockey Awards Evening which was held in Shaw’s Bridge Sports Association. The event, now in its fifth year, is ever popular with 110 girls in attendance. Various awards were given to each team with Player of the Year and Most Improved Players being highlighted for the achievement during the 2015-16 season.

After enjoying a lovely meal and some nice cakes and buns prepared by the senior girls, the awards part of the evening started with the Year 8 teams who had enjoyed a rather successful season, their first in Victoria College, under the tutelage of Ms duToit, Mrs Patterson and Mr Maguire. Rebecca Nelson, Beth Roberts, America Megahey and Lauren Patterson, who had acted as captains of the various teams, all delivered speeches about how their various teams had performed this year.

Year 9 teams followed with speeches given by B-Team Captains Megan Neill and Ellen McCandless and A-Team Captains Zahra Lowry, Anna Hill and Sarah Bunn.

Ms DuToit shared her thoughts on Junior School hockey over the year and highlighted many of the best aspects of the season. These included the Year 9 trip to Dublin to play Alexandra College.

It was then the turn of Mr Gray’s Year 10 girls to tell the story of their season. Raz Hassan, captain of the B-Team, outlined their difficult season and then the A-Team, who were captained by Susie Loane, told of their varied year, which started rather poorly before a dramatic change in fortunes in the second half of the season explained by Caoimhe McAllister. Mr Gray as always was in a rather eccentric mood as he reflected on the year and recalled some of the biggest highlights including their tour to Glasgow, which brought a fitting end to their junior school hockey.

The senior school teams then followed with Miss Stewart outlining the huge numbers of girls wanting to take part in senior school hockey and how encouraging it was for the school. In the absence of Miss McMillan, Miss Stewart performed the honours for the Year 11 (under-15) team. Captain Darcey Smyth, who was named player of the year, gave a speech on their season. A rather giggly Anna Walker, captain of the 2B team then followed with her summation of the season.

Lizzie Lawther then gave a short talk on the Senior Hockey Tour to Amsterdam in March 2016, highlighting to the younger girls in attendance the fun that was had by all who went on the trip.

The penultimate team recognised was Mrs Loane’s 2A Team, who had one of their most successful seasons ever. They reached the final of the McDowell Cup, losing narrowly to a very strong Ballyclare side. Captain Lauren Russell, who excelled throughout the year in the sweeper role, gave an excellent account of the sides run to the cup final during the season. Mrs Loane also spoke in glowing terms about the entire group of 16 players who all contributed throughout the year. Special note was also made of the goal-scoring exploits of Ara McCartan and the excellent goalkeeping of Lauren Henderson.

Finally it was the turn of the first team who once again had made a final but came away without the main prize. Under the guidance of coach Paddy Grimes assisted by Matthew Bell the team enjoyed a mixed season with some superb results coupled with some equally poor results. However, in her speech, co-captain Bronagh Mc Cann, outlined the resilience of the team when it came to cup competitions. Unlucky to lose to Armagh Royal in the third round of the Schools Cup by a narrow 1-0 margin, the team then went on to reach the final of the Shield competition where they lost on penalties to Wallace High School. Bronagh remarked that a trophy of some kind is surely not too far away. Mention was also made of Amy Edwards who played Ulster U-18 and Beth Walker who played Ulster U-16’s during the year whilst most improved player Caitlyn Murphy was wished luck in her forthcoming matches for Ulster U-17’s.

The final award of the evening went to year-14 girl Bronagh McCann. Bronagh has been involved with hockey in the school since starting in 2009 and in the past year was one of the captains of the First Team. The award was in recognition of her immense contribution to school hockey throughout the last seven years.

Head of PE, Miss Stewart, closed the evening by thanking all for their efforts during the 2015-16 season and congratulated the amazing number of girls who had gained representative honours throughout the year. She wished everyone a happy summer. She hoped that 2016-17 season would be as rewarding as the season just ended.

Girls Hockey in the school is lucky to have a number of dedicated partners which help them deliver an extensive programme to an ever increasing number of girls. Special thanks must be given to our principal partners Radisson Blu Hotel, Danske Bank, DJ Livingstone & Co Electrical, Noel Savage Construction, Clear Pharmacy and Under Armour who have come on-board this year to help grow hockey in the school.